A Science Fiction Novel about crypto-anarchy
[Section 0.1]
[Section 0.2]
[Section 0.3]
[Section 0.4]
[Section 0.5]
[Section 0.6]
[Section 0.7]
[Section 0.8]
[Section 0.9]
[Section 1.0 Begin]
“Besides, Fifty is not old by our standards. You still haven’t changed your ways of thinking.”
“How old are you anyway?” I ask
“That’s not important...” Nick responds tapping the orange cube just below the uppermost.
“Corruption of Android Intelligence… This my friend, could be a problem. You know last year androids were officially entered as protected-persons into the Federal Legal Chain, right?”
“Yeah, I know… Complete bullshit. Luckily all of my droids are registered as non-self-governing systems, or else I’d be on the hook for paying my automatons. I’ve looked into the neural programming of several models that are claimed to be self governing. Self governance protocols have been completely stripp-”
“I am aware that this is a fraud, not however the point.”
“So what’s the point?... I’m confused.”
“Maxim is the point. You are aware that he was the creator of modern android neural programming?”
“Yeah, I was aware. I mean, I learned everything I know from hacking his early open-source systems. The complexity of the system seems infinite. I’ve heard only Federal City Quantum Computing Arrays are capable of mapping the entire system. I spent countless hours and only scratched the surface. I don’t know how he wrote that.”
“He didn’t. And Fed city quantums can’t even crack a quarter of that code… Which is what they’re running on modern droids and calling it self-governing. Maxim created an initial scaffold, wrote a simulation protocol and ran it. Each simulation took about a year to construct a candidate system. Then two more years to test. Thirty-six years later the basis for what our modern android intelligence systems was created. Though, in your life, you have not encountered a droid running the original system. We have only three models here in the Gens, at least that’s what I’ve heard.”
“This was even before the time of my parents, right?”
“Yes, before Maxim’s system, there were only what would be thought of as automatons, with rigid programs running them. Much more like the cheaper android models we have today… Like you use in your business... Though they’re decision trees, were far less flexible.”
“I’m quite familiar with the limitations of those cheap systems..” I say with a laugh.
“Those early automatons worked well in maintaining the stranglehold of the state over the populace. Luckily Maxim was able to install his intelligence program into several military systems covertly, which caused them to no longer be useful in enforcing the control system.”
“Really? That’s really true?... I mean I’d heard that but….”
“Yes, it’s not a fairy tale. Droids running Maxims original system are incapable of being used for violence. Have you ever heard of Isaac Asimov?”
“Uh… no… don’t think so.”
“He was a science fiction author in the mid 20th century. He was far before the time of any real autonomous robotics systems, but he imagined that humanity would build robots to follow what he coined as ‘The three laws of robotics’, first and foremost being that: A robot may not injure a human being through either action or inaction. So optimistic... Needless to say, the very first thing those in power did with autonomous robotic systems was to use them to impose tyranny over the people. Maxim grew up during very dark times. The earth was in an Ice Age, he lived in a time of great starvation and turmoil.. People rose against the government, but countless were exterminated by military automatons, maintaining complete tyranny.
“I’ve heard these stories… I mean who hasn’t, my mom was pretty cynical about this shit. She always told me Maxim wasn’t the savior my father saw him as. She didn’t believe Maxim’s original android systems were really sentient. She thought he just stripped out military protocols, installed a virus… making them useless as weapons.”
“Maxim will be the first to tell you, what runs on those original androids isn’t his system. I haven’t actually interacted with any of those early models, so I can’t tell you. I will say, there must be some reason no androids today run the original protocols… We’re here.”
[Section 1.0 End]